Popped the head gasket...
 

(no, i'm not going to dump in some "head gasket fix" into my oil) :noob:

I had noticed the cooling system was eating up a little water in between drives. Stock temp gauge was being funny, but I don't think it ever really overheated that bad. Time for an aftermarket water temp gauge. Then all of a sudden it lost all sorts of power after a 3rd gear pull at 16psi. Confirmed my suspicions when I dumped the oily mixture out of the radiator.

1. What are good things to do while the head is off? I'm thinking coolant reroute.
2. What HG? Seems like everyone is just using the OEM gasket. Is there a certain boost level that might warrant an aftermarket HG?
3. After I realized the failure, I pulled the spark plugs. The plug on #1 had ZERO gap. Worthless! Is this a trademark sign of detonation?

The engine will go back on the stand and I'll pop the head off sometime next week. Thanks for the input.

This is on a 99? Pull the head, bring it to machine shop for them to check and surface. Check block with straight edge. The OEM multi layer head gasket is pretty good, I'd go with another. I'd also get a set of ARP head studs.

Coolant re-route's not a bad idea and you might want to take the rad to be hot tanked. Not necessary, but can't hurt.

Clean up the ports, valve job. Be sure to make sure both decks are flat. I'd go with a multi-layer steel over the 1.6 composite.

Detonation can do lots of things. Rather than speculate, just wait until you get the head off and go through it.

It's in a 99 chassis, but it's a 1.6 swap. Don't ask. I'll definitely let a machine shop check it out and possibly let them do the valve job. Should I mess with cleaning the HLAs or just leave them alone if they weren't making *too* much noise? I doubt there's any warpage, but we'll see. Who makes a good multi-layer steel HG? Cometic?

get your exhaust parts ceramic coated. I just got mine back and they look awesome, and supposedly lower under-bonnet temps (sorry for the English shit). I actually did it for heat control, but its worth it for the looks alone. Now I have to paint my turbo because the turbine housing makes it the compressor housing look like shit.

yes, cometic is your daddy.

That's pretty weird. FM has a MLS gasket. $100 I think. A bit high, but it's probably the only game in town.

You can remove and clean your HLAs. It's not hard at all, but be sure that you put everything back where it came from. Don't mix things up at all. But if you actually value your time, they're cheap enough new to just buy a set. Or if you've got 1 foot in the poor house, you can say F-It and do them anytime later.

$95 here! yay.

http://www.raceeng.com/p-1106-mls-ga...680mm-040.aspx